All-rounder’s sporting failure (3)
I believe the answer is:
nil
'failure' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't see how one could define the other.
'all-rounder's sporting' is the wordplay.
'all' becomes 'any' ('any' can be similar in meaning to 'all').
'rounder' means to look at the middle letters (I've seen 'round' mean this).
'sporting' becomes 'il' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The middle of 'any' is 'n'.
'n'+'il'='NIL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for nil that I've seen before include "Zero, zilch" , "Nothing found in senility" , "0" , "Zero, no score" , "Nothing - in Latin" .)